“Raising Our Sights”

Jeremiah 1:4-10    Luke 13:10-17

13th Sunday after Pentecost    August 22, 2010

First Congregational UCC/Reverend Deb Davis                  

     A week or so ago I found myself watching the gospel according to Oprah once again … as I pounded away on the treadmill at the Y.

     She had a segment that day that featured men and women who had lost a great deal of weight … and one woman who was featured had at one time weighed well over 700 pounds. She had lost more than 500 pounds … without surgery and without diet drugs … and let me tell you that inspired me to raise the speed on that treadmill.

     The woman had a pretty amazing story … but the thing I’d like to lift up … in light of this morning’s gospel story from Luke … is what caused her to begin to lose all of that weight.

    She said that one day a member of her family brought her a computer … and because she could hardly move off of her couch – let alone out of her apartment – she began to spend a lot of time on the computer in chat rooms.

    And what she found was that in those chat rooms … no one could see that she was a woman who weighed more than 700 pounds … and so she said people told her she was witty and smart … they engaged her in conversation day after day … and through that interaction she began to raise her sights.

    She began to believe that she was more than just an obese human being … wasn’t defined just by that … … decided that perhaps she deserved to have friends and spend time talking with people … with people who  actually liked her … who couldn’t automatically label her … and ignore her … or write her off … because of her weight.

     At some point … she must have decided that she actually mattered. And so she began her weight loss journey.

     I finished my walk and had places to go … so I didn’t watch the rest of the show … I don’t know if she ever talked about why she had gained so much weight in the first place. But I suspect if she did … she would have talked about the shaming things she had encountered in her life … the negative messages she had received … the abuse she had known … … all the things that had led her … the things that also lead us … to believe we don’t matter in the first place.

     Most of us are pretty good at categorizing people according to their deficiences … … rather than calling each other by name.

    We talk about the physically challenged, the mentally challenged, the abuse victim, the anorexic, the overeater, the divorcee, the single parent, the cross-dresser, the … you name it.

     And of course, we do it to others because we are so good at doing it to ourselves. We are “too this” and “not enough”  that … we are riddled with guilt and shame and regret and grief … we just know in our gut that we are not good enough … … that God could never really love us.

     We are so afraid … and more afraid to show it.

     But no matter if these descriptions provide some facts about our lives … or about others’ lives ... there is a greater truth with which we have to deal this morning.

In light of the teachings of Jesus … in light of his healing of this bent over woman … … the greater truth is that God does not define us by our problems or by our past … rather God sees our hurts … and they matter.

     We enter Luke’s Gospel this morning on a Sabbath day … and Jesus is in the synagogue teaching. Suddenly a woman appears … a woman who has been bent over for the past 18 years … a woman who sees only the ground as she walks around her village … she can not stand up straight … she can not raise her eyes.

     The text doesn’t tell us what caused her ailment … Jesus calls it a “force of evil.”

     Perhaps she was bent over by a culture that marginalized women and rendered them invisible.

     Perhaps she was bent over by poverty, always worrying about the next meal, the next hour, the next minute.

     Perhaps she was bent over by illness … we really don’t know … but whatever it was … she must have assumed after all those years … that she would always be bent over … she would live our her days just this way.

     But then she finds out differently … Jesus sees her. It doesn’t just see her gender or her age or her ailment … rather he sees her … and she matters … her pain matters to him … her lack of community matters to him … she matters to him.

     And so he calls her over … gets close enough to touch her … and he lays his hands on her … she is able to stand up straight … … and then he calls her a daughter of Abraham … a daughter of the covenant … a beloved child of God.

     And as he does that … he breaks a rule … a rule that said he could not heal on the Sabbath.

     And he crosses a boundary … that said he should not have conversation with  –  should certainly not touch - an unknown woman.

     And as a result of his rule breaking and his boundary crossing … Jesus gets into an arguement with the local religious leaders. They believe their Sabbath observance takes priority over the woman’s need. But Jesus disagrees … and he reminds them that they care for their animals on the Sabbath … they care for their own economic interests … so why shouldn’t he be allowed to show compassion to this woman?

     This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time that Jesus heals on the Sabbath  … not the first or last time that he inverts the order of things. The religious leaders are angry … … the people are rejoicing.

    Remember in last week’s text, when Jesus said he came not to bring peace … not to maintain the status quo … well here’s an example of what he meant because with this healing … he causes division.

     For Jesus … peace is not peace if it comes at the price of justice … and likewise … rules should be disregarded … if they are not guided by love of God and neighbor.

     Jesus raised this woman’s sights on that long ago Sabbath day … not just so she could literally see what was in front of her … but so she could truly see … who she was in the eyes of God. He gave her a new name – daugther of the covenant – and a new way of seeing herself.

     And in so doing … Jesus reveals a God for whom the well-being of this woman is of far greater importance than any law or doctrine of the church … Jesus reveals a God that is in no way offended by this woman’s healing.

     And so the text asks us to ponder a couple of questions this morning: “What is weighing us down?”  … and … “And we willing to accept this new name God wants to give us?” 

     These are important questions … because I suspect we are all bent-over somewhere in our lives … for some it is just more visible than with others. We are all in need of Jesus’ “laying on of hands.” We all need our sights raised.

     It is our sacred task to recognize the bent-over people in our midst … but it is also our sacred task to recognize the bent over parts of ourselves.

    I’d like you to try and visulize with me this morning a little exercise that was created by Bill Dols of the Bible Workbench.

     Let’s begin by imagining we are at the beach … there’s a lot of wet sand … and we have a little plastic scoop, several ziplock bags and a backpack.

     And then … I want you to think about your life … and what it is that is bending you over this morning?

    Estimate how much they weigh … and then imagine putting that much sand in a ziplock bag … as much sand as you think the problem weighs.

     For example … are there health issues you’ve neglected? … Is your job out of alignment with your values? … Do you have money problems?

     Or perhaps you have issues with your children … a relationship crisis … care required for elderly parents. Every time something comes to mind … fill a plastic bag with some sand.

     Maybe there’s a grudge you’ve been carrying around for 30 years … something that still makes you angry … put some sand in a bag.

     Maybe there’s a decision you’ve been struggling to make … put some sand in a bag.

     Maybe you’re carrying around a lot of old tapes in your head … tapes that are shaming and guilt inducing … … put some sand in a bag.

     Maybe there are prejudices filling your heart … feelings that cause you to minimize others … put some sand in a bag.

     Then put all the little plastic bags of wet sand in your backpack and imagine putting it on … realize how much all that weighs … how much it is bending you over … carry it around for a while.

     And then dump out all of the bags … right there in front of you. And ask youself some questions about each one.

     Is this a weight I value and so choose to carry … even though it’s heavy?

     Does this weight really belong to me? Or have I picked up somebody else’s weight … because they have passed it on … or because they refuse to carry it?

      Is this weight something I don’t have to carry all by myself? Could I possibly ask someone – a friend, a pastor, a therapist - to help me with this one?

     Am I carrying something that is completely out of my hands?  Am I worrying about something that I have absolutely no control over? Could I turn this one over to God … could God be the stronghold for this one?

     Am I carrying something that someone handed me a long time ago … that I didn’t even realize I was carrying … something that perhaps I can put down forever?

     Am I carrying something because of some rule or tradition … that perhaps I need to rethink?

     Spend some time with those plastic bags … carry them around … sort them out … ask some questions of them … see if there are some you can put down.

     And then … can you also imagine … Jesus laying his hands on your shoulders this morning … calling you a beloved child of God … a child of the covenant … … asking you to stand up straight … to raise your sights … to begin again … … … because you matter.

And when you can finally come to know the truth of that … you will know something else … you will know that all God’s children matter. Amen.